Tight security ahead of yoga day event in Chandigarh

Chandigarh, Jun 17 (PTI) Around 5,000 police personnel will keep a hawk-eye vigil on the International Yoga Day event on June 21 in Chandigarh, to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Tight security arrangements will be made for the event, official sources said, adding that around 5,000 police personnel will be deployed to avoid any untoward incident.

The security around the main venue has also been increased ahead of the event. The UT Police has asked for additional police force from Punjab and Haryana apart from the paramilitary forces, a senior police official said.

A team of the Special Protection Group (SPG) will land in the city to review the security arrangements, he said.

The main event, which is being held at Capitol Complex, is likely to be attended by around 30,000 people out of the total 1,20,000 who have registered themselves, UT Chandigarhs Home Secretary Anurag Aggarwal said today.

"The Prime Minister is likely to arrive here on June 20," he said.

A series of programmes are being held in the run-up to the mega-event, Aggarwal said.

"We held a yoga festival from June 9-12, which was inaugurated by Punjab and Haryana Governor and UT Administrator Kaptan Singh Solanki, in which (Art of Living founder) Sri Sri Ravi Shankar was the guest of honour. We also held an academic programme, which was also inaugurated by Governor Solanki," he said.

The Chandigarhs Home Secretary said earlier, as part of the build-up to the mega event, worlds first 3-D impressions of yoga were displayed at Sukhna lake.

Yoga flash-mob and moonlight yoga were also organised ahead of the event. A yoga run has been organised here for tomorrow, he said.

Aggarwal said the participants at the International Yoga Day event will be issued special radio frequency tags in order to track their attendance and secure the venue.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) cards will have details including name, Aadhaar number, photo, gender and age of each of the participants.

There will also be a selfie zone at the venue, which is in line with the local administrations effort to impart a tech-savvy feel to the event.